


Where Angels Rush In

by LadyFlorenceCrayeCraye



Series: Jeeves and The Better Angels of Our Nature [3]
Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Multi, Period Typical Attitudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-11 05:16:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7877980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyFlorenceCrayeCraye/pseuds/LadyFlorenceCrayeCraye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bertie POV. Aunt Dahlia needs Bertie to re-purloin a cow creamer. Bertie needs to find someone to play the role of his fiancee asap or else he'll have to elope with Madeline Bassett. Any sort of obliging female will do to impersonate the necessary; so who better to impersonate a female than a female impersonator? Maybe Jeeves would have had a better suggestion, but he's not himself at the moment. Poor Bertie. He pines a lot, he finds the lots fall through without you (oops that's different thing - still true though). Is Jeeves really going to leave him? The Bertie-centric companion to 'A  Dictionary of the Language Angels'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Case of the Purloined Cow Creamer

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my attempt at an adoring pastiche of the P G Wodehouse style. The events of this story run exactly parallel to the ones in my other fic 'A Dictionary of the Language of the Angels', which is told from Jeeves's perspective. But the two do not need to be read together in order to make sense.
> 
> Jeeves's story, though not exactly angst, is a bit more how I imagine 'Spindrift' might be (a sort of Frankenstein's monster made up of left over parts from Djuna Barnes and E M Forster, transposed into the Wodehouse style and sewn together artlessly, but with colourful thread), while this story by Bertie is intended to be only about 2.5% more risque than anything in you might find canon. 
> 
> "What We Talk About When We Talk About 'What Angels Can't Talk About'" is the step-sister to this fic. That is to say about 5.2% more risque than the real thing. It's the off-cuts which aren't PG enough for Wodehouse. It fills in the gaps from the POV of some of the characters mentioned in this story. 
> 
> My motto: keep it light, keep it clean, don't go outside all summer. 
> 
> I mean, when you think about it, why would you?
> 
> Also, this is all un-beta'd because writing off-label versions of P G Wodehouse (er ..Peejish Whooshhaus? J P Plankhome? ed. note: no wait, obviously, and I have come back specifically to write this, but the off-label version of P G Wodehouse is obviously... Peevish Woodlouse) is a solitary vice. If you notice any egregious errors of the typographical type etc., I won't mind if you gently point me towards them. Or just get in touch to say, 'you're safe, you're calm, you've written about 20,000 words of moderately erotic P G Wodehouse fanfiction and you're still just getting started, but it's alright because I can lead you to a place of safety'. I mean, I don't like, know anyone else around here...
> 
> And if you're reading this... you're er.. well we're er... not exactly like other people.
> 
> And that's fine. Your auntie Lady Florence Craye-Craye says so.

An old school chum of mine Fizzy Fipps Clay-Fitherington, while on brief intermission from penetrating the dark heart of Ishmaelia, Kuala Lumpar, Bratislava or similar benighted locale on behalf of His Majesty's empire, once happened to mention to me while in the course of an evening's entertainment, that there are some places still left in this world, where aunts are habitually toasted, buttered and served up as light refreshments.

At the time the policy struck me as somewhat severe. However, in light of recent events I find there is much to commend the practice.

It started, as these things seem to have a tendency to start, innocently enough.

After a night of-hail-fellow-well-mettery in the company of Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright and the young Freddie Threepwood, I had retired to my bachelor abode in rather high spirits.

Until that night I had maintained only slight acquaintance with the aforementioned Frederick Th., but having dined together earlier in the evening Catsmeat and I happened across him in the Drone's Club billiards room. Or to put it more precisely, we found the young scion of old England muttering darkly and scuffing the table with his cue.

We watched him for a few minutes as he pushed the balls about, much in the manner of an enterprising young technical agronomist devising new and scientific methods of sowing potato crops. When we both could take no more of this, Catsmeat stepped in to intercede. The Samaritan act was performed as much for the felt as for the Threepwood, but it seemed to do the trick. He set down the weapon and confessed all.

We soon divined the source of his _ennui –_ if _ennui_ is the word I want – and set about a spirit lifting mission.

The story was a familiar one. Act 1: Enter Stage Right, Girl of the simply corking variety. Boy meets said Girl. Girl pipped. Boy woos, but wooing to little effect. Intermission. Act 2: Continuation of wooing programme as set out in Act 1. Just as the ice seems to be melting nicely, enter Stage Left, Boy Number Two; obviously cad/ villain of the first order. Yet Boy II and Girl hit it off like a tonne of bricks on fire. Engagement notice in _The Times_ pronto; reading of banns to follow soonish. Curtain. _Finis_.

“It seems to me old chap” said Catsmeat with characteristic sagacity, at the end of this sad tale, “That the only thing for it is to let Bertie and I wash away your sorrows in the waters of Lethe. And as it happens, I know a place on the Edgeware Road where the waters flow in especial abundance this time of night.”

Having hit upon this scheme, we saw it through to its inevitable conclusion.

The nightclub was jammed past the gunnels. Kit Carrington, who I had heard play in New York not long ago, was in residence and the walls were palpitating.

Ever since becoming the subject of one of renowned evangelist and beseecher of the sin-soaked, Jimmy Mundy's, more stirring sermons, Kit had been the hot booking in that town and was now engaged on a world tour with his All-Star Band.

What I mean to say is; a good time was to be had by all, with plenty to spare left over.

Young Threepwood may have started the night quite fanatical in his conviction that even the very name 'Eve' – for that was the dame who had kicked it all off; a Miss Halliday, not her more famous forebear, through I suppose she had a part in it too, if you were willing to go far back enough – was as the soft sighs of tender angels, but through patient application we were able to convince him otherwise.

When we were boys together on remand at his preparatory school at Bramley-on-Sea, our old headmaster, the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn used to exhort the infantile Catsmeat and I with stories on just such a similar moral theme as the scheme we had hit upon for poor Threepwood that night. While the particulars of the middle part may differ from the originals, I like to think that the beginning and end of this little case in point re. the junior Threepwood's _affaire du coeur_ , may serve to demonstrate these stories' purpose rather well.

That is to say: if one simply applies oneself manfully, maintains the positive disposish throughout, laughs in the face of all discouragements and goes forth undeterred, then one can expect little else but to triumph.

The price of enlightenment on this occasion however was a hard one. Young Threepwood had taken more than the usual measure of exhortation before he could induce him to laugh in the face of even a small sampling of discouragements, let alone the whole box full.

So it was with some fair amount of reluctance that I greeted the dawn the following day.

I awoke with a troop of dervishes engaged in the old whirling act against the confines of my cranium.

As if by occult pact, Jeeves was on hand with a dose of his restoring elixir.

Having dispatched the necessary evil with manly speed and purpose, I began to feel approximately human again. He handed me my tea with a look like one who could squeeze the balm of Gilead from out of a tube.

I sank back against the pillows and watched him move about the room, soothing as a springtime breeze. Even the unruly sun seemed less busy with Jeeves at hand to subdue its assault upon my curtains.  


“Mrs Travers rang for you earlier, sir” he said gliding about the chamber, causing it to brighten by subtle degrees like a druid conducting a more-than-usually cracking solstice.

“My Aunt Dahlia?” I said, for I knew of no others who might fit the description better than she, “What could she want? Is she up in town?”  


“I would surmise as much, sir, from the context. She has requested you give her lunch at Harridges in an hour.”

“Well then, in that case I shall forgo the customary eggs and b. But perhaps some toast and small scrapings of marmalade are in order, Jeeves.”

With a 'very good, sir', the faithful retainer departed to make the necessary preparations.

I poured myself a second cup of tea and drank it meditatively.

Now Dahlia Travers _nee_ Wooster is the jolly, bonhomous aunt, who having spent a girlhood charging about hot on the heels of the hounds of the Quorn and Pytchly, has tallied up more hours on horseback than the average centaur.

Having expended in early adulthood all of her harrying prowess upon the fox-life of Leicestershire and its surroundings, in her maturity she has proven far less inclined to harry nephews. We tend to rub along pretty well together.

To the amateur aunt spotter, a note of caution. Though some family resemblance may be noted, Aunt Dahlia must on no account be confused with Aunt Agatha, the crusher of nephews and spitter of nails.

While any foxes among my readership may respectfully beg to differ on the matter, Aunt Agatha's powers of harrying are orders of magnitude more developed than those of her sister. She also maintains a decent side-line in chivvying, hassling and barracking.

Jeeves could probably tell you the reasons, though I do not know them myself, how it happens on occasion that two fillies from the same sire and the same stable can grow up to manifest such markedly different form and temperament.

Yet happen it does. For confirmation of this hypotenuse – no, dash it, that's the other thing – one need look no further that Bingo Little's little investment in this year's Oaks. A sister of the previous winner (who had won the race in her maiden stakes) was running. Acting on some sound intelligence, Bingo put his small all on the outcome of the race and at the last I heard that horse is still on the track. It makes you think.

Now with that said, for all her estimable qualities my Aunt Dahlia is not without her own frailties. She has a latent, though in her latter years, increasingly reckless, kleptomaniacal streak.

I don't mean to say she goes about sneaking handkerchiefs at Harridges. Rather, that in the last few years she has been known to pinch both French chefs and cow creamers much in the manner of a modern-day Raffles.

Now whether she ever awakens from the dark of her slumber with a twinging conscience, I could not say. I myself always sleep very soundly _chez_ Travers. But even the most hardened of criminal types, as he is lead out beneath the shadow of the gallows, has been known to call out for a priest in order to confess to having pinched pennies from his mother's purse in infancy.

I am a tolerant sort of bird. To my way of seeing things, a spot of pinching here and there is a venial sort of sin and really not all all the thing to imperil one's invisible soul over, so long as it doesn't get out of hand. Now of course, the last man I had before Jeeves pinched well beyond all reasonable limits and so I was compelled to let him go. But I confess, dear reader, that even I have gone in for a bit of it in the spirit of youthful exuberance; at least where the matter of policemen's helmets on Boat Race night are concerned.

So you see, it was not mere prejudice that was causing this nagging sense of unease to well up within, in response to the message that Jeeves had just relayed to me. Under most normal circs. to strap on the old feed-bag alongside the aged r. is both a boon and a pleasure. The fly enters the ointment thus: on more than one occasion this esteemed relation has enlisted my assistance in the furtherance of her criminal enterprises.

It is upon this unfortunate fact that I am dwelling, as Jeeves shimmers forwards with a tray of toast in his arms.

He set it down and commenced to run my bath with an admirable efficiency.

Having nibbled a corner of the toast previously described, I attended to my toilette with all possible speed.

Time waits for no Wooster and the lunch hour was set soon to be upon us.

“I say, Jeeves,” I called out from the tub, “Did anything in the demeanour of my honoured aunt this morning, tip you off to whether this little lunch engagement of ours might be no more than a pretext? I mean to say, will I simply be expected to chew of the fat and swig of the ale in good company, or am I to be plunged once more into criminal conspiracy? Harridges isn't her usual watering hole.”  
  
“I couldn't say, sir” floated the voice from the room adjacent, “But as you mention it, there was something she said which may have been suggestive of some ulterior motive in requesting your company this afternoon.”

“Good heavens, Jeeves and you're telling me this only now!”  
  
“I didn't like to startle you, sir.”

“Well, I'm as startled now as an nephew can be! If you looked it up in any decent sportsman's almanac, you should see that as of this moment, I am the current world-championship title holder for 'Most Startled Nephew' in my weight category. Out with it then... what's the one about having four arms?”

“ _Praemonitus, praemunitus,_ sir, forewarned is forearmed.”

“Praemunitus! I always thought that was a type of tropical insect thingy. You know the ones I mean, with the sort of bustle at the back and the saucerish eyes at the front, rather like Madeline Bassett's upon hearing of how of Christopher Robbin plays hop-a-long with bunny-lumpkins in the fairy woods.”

“I believe the creature to which you are referring, sir, is the 'Praying Mantis'. A member of the order _Mantodea_ , of which the largest family is the _Mantidae._ Their common name is given on account of their upright posture and folded forearms. The Greeks held them to be in possession of supernatural qualities, while the female of the species has been observed engaging in acts of sexual cannibalism with the male.”

“Good Lord, Jeeves! Let us hope for the sake of old Spode, that the similarities with _La Bassett_ terminate at the eyes.”

“Quite, sir.”

“And if I ever happened to find myself engaged to a member of the family _Mantidae_ , please do all you can to scratch the fixture.”

  
“The eventuality is a remote one, sir”

“So was the eventuality of my becoming engaged to Madeline Bassett, yet it has happened on more than one occasion.”

“Your argument is not without validity, sir.”

“It's like the fellow says: one must never muddle up the remote with the whatsit. Still, I suppose it's unlikely I'll find myself plighted in troth to young Madeline again for the foreseeable. The nuptials are all set for the end of the month. Flowers are ordered, the dress is fitted, old Spode has been stuffed into a new suit, with full-length trousers, while his Black Shorts are out in Hyde Park every morning, practising in formation for the salute of honour. My future seems quite clear and rosy... if a future can be clear as well as rosy... Well, dash it! You know what I mean, Jeeves.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You should have reminded me, Jeeves! What's this insider's scoop of yours on Dahlia's current scheme?”

“At present it remains as occluded to me, as it is to you, sir. Though I must admit it has presented me with some small difficulty myself this morning. For you see, sir, Mrs Travers has requested that you come incognito.”

“Incognito?”

“Yes sir, that is to say, in disguise.”  
  
“I know what incognito is, Jeeves! they're forever going about in it in Rex West's mysteries. What I mean to say is, does Aunt Dahlia expect me to turn up in fancy dress?”  


“I should think that most inadvisable, sir.”  
  
“And you should not be wrong, Jeeves!”

“If I might make a suggestion sir, I have laid out the tweed with the light-blue stripe. Contrary to most popular wisdom on the subject, camouflage is not merely a matter of obtaining a disguise. After all, one cannot convince the eye not to see by force of will, for the nature of the eye is seeing. Camouflage is a matter of misleading the eye into seeing without taking note of what it sees. If you dress to your surroundings and proceed about your business, lightly, yes sir, but with confidence and resolution, then you will give off no suggestion of subterfuge and it is most unlikely you will draw any unwanted attention.”

Well, I mean to say! That stuff about the mantises earlier, while not quite suitable for mixed company was pretty hot on the money, if rather in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ line of things. But this was another sort of thingy all together, enough to make you take a moment to pause and chew it all over.

“Great Scott, Jeeves,” I said at length, “Is that philosophy or psychology?”

Jeeves is not capable of blushing, but had he been I would have told you a slight pinkness went creeping about around his collar. He coughed.

“I should think a small degree of both, sir.”

“One of that Spinoza chappy's?”

“Not exactly sir, although Spinoza was a lens-grinder by profession and did contribute somewhat to the study of optics in his day.”

“Well well. Although... don't you think it would work better if just I went out not dressed as myself? I mean to say, if I wore a check waistcoat or something? Or fake whiskers? Or a lavender shirt front? Or that tie with the little horseshoes on it that Bingo's waitress gave him, before he was married to Mrs. B.?”

“I would still recommend the tweed, sir.”

“Well I suppose there's no time to go finding lavender shirt fronts now. Although... Jeeves! I've hit upon it. Please, fetch the Turkish costume that Fizzy sent to me last Christmas.”

“Really, sir...”

“No, Jeeves. The matter is settled. Incognito is requested and incognito I shall go!”

~*~

Now don't come away with the impression, gentle reader, that I felt any particular joy at the prospect of donning the old Turkish get up and scurrying along to the Harridges tea room, looking like a conjurer's assistant who'd fallen off the pier at Brighton beach. In fact, the very thought of it gave me palpitations.

I have a long-standing policy on the matter of fancy dress, which has appeared in print on previous occasions and which I stand by still: the only acceptable form of it, where the English gentleman is concerned, is to slather on the white face-paint and attend as a Pierrot.

Upon on further reflection and with additional data borne of grave experience, I will amend my policy to state: the only acceptable venue for fancy dress is at a fancy dress ball or – if one has been too much of a bally fool to wriggle out it in time– during amateur theatricals.

As it stood, I had not even the slightest intention of going about in Turkish trousers and a fez, and had in fact been rather eyeing up the tweed with the light-blue stripe myself, when Jeeves had made the suggestion.

But you see, the matter was as follows:

While not exactly the Brain of the British Isles, I am not entirely unobservant. I had noticed that Jeeves had been rather off his feed in recent months and I had a suspicion as to what the cause of it might be.

It is well known that the mighty and fish-fed among us must languish with nothing to pit their wits against.

Since all had been quiet about the Wooster homestead of late, it would appear that my man Jeeves was in need of something of a challenge.

For as much as anything else, one cannot hope to maintain a race winner in peak condition through to the next season if you simply stick him in a stable and let him stuff himself with oats all winter, whatever his form may have been in the previous.

When confronted with a rare specimen such as Jeeves, it is necessary to provide a bit of additional stimulus for the chap. One must supply them with regular exercise or else they start to lose it.

Jeeves was clearly chewing at the bit.

Now I had expected a challenge of wits. Indeed, I had girded myself for it.

What I had not expected was for Jeeves to simply shrug and whisk the tweed away, with no more than a nominal 'now really, sir' by way of objection.

I had expected him to come out fighting like a tartar, but instead he merely rolled back and showed his belly. It disconcerted me.

So it was with no small dismay, that I witnessed my man delve within the inner reaches of my wardrobe and come back with a pair of baggy trousers, embroidered shirt and mirrored waistcoat.

I was frozen. On the one hand, I was touched that after a campaign of long attrition he was finally displaying the correct feudal spirit in matters sartorial, on the other hand it was a pair of baggy trousers, embroidered shirt and mirrored waistcoat and on the other, other hand I was going to have to wear it round Knightsbridge in half an hour.

“Well, I suppose this is it then Jeeves. Incognito I go. Incognito once more into the breech.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Although I think the fez might be rather _de trop,_ don't you agree Jeeves?”  
  
“I really couldn't say, sir.”  
  
“Well I do. I shall forgo the fez for today.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Um Jeeves, it's rather chilly out isn't it?”

“I am finding it to be quite unseasonably mild, sir.”  
  
“Well all the same, I shall wear the Burberry out today I think. Can't risk catching a chill, what?”  
  
“Very wise, sir.”

~*~

I arrived at the department-store tea room somewhat late, sweltering beneath the colossal weight of unnecessary outerwear.

I waved away the cloakroom attendant, who had sprung upon me like one who intends to commit a highway robbery and go to sit down.

I find Aunt Dahlia seated in the far corner, behind the fronds of some potted palms.

“Hello my charming young parasite,” said she, by way of friendly greeting “I hope your conscience stings you for keeping an auntie waiting.”

“Hallo aged R. you're looking well!”

“And you're looking like a steamed haddock. What on earth do you mean by showing up here mummified in that enormous coat? You look like Tutankhamun bundled up for second-class shipping. Take the blasted thing off at once for heaven's sake!”

I removed the coat and Aunt Dahlia emitted a sort of short bark, rather like a circus seal falling from off a horse.

“On second thought keep it on, you intolerable blot. What merciful powers could have allowed you to come out dressed like that? Has Jeeves fallen ill? Is he dead? Has he become a Bolshevist since breakfast? He sounded well enough when I spoke to him one the 'phone this morning.”  
  
“I've come incognito,” I replied, with a hauteur that could have cooled a cocktail for an Eskimo.

“I ought to have known you'd show up in something of the sort. Why you thought it would be inconspicuous to go traipsing through Knightsbridge dressed as some sort of Sheik...”  
  
“Now come come Aunt Dahlia, I'd hardly come dressed as a Sheik. I'm dressed as an Ottoman.”

“Well I don't care if you're dressed as a chest of drawers, I have a little mission for you.”

“Aunt Dahlia!”  
  
“Just a little mission for auntie. You'll enjoy it.”

“I find that highly unlikely.”

“Well alright then, you won't enjoy it; but you'll do it. Now, your Uncle Tom has sent that former fiancée of yours a certain cow creamer as a wedding present – no no not that one, another cow creamer equally repellent – and it falls upon you to retrieve it on my behalf.”

“I can only assume you are referring to Miss Bassett, when you say that former fiancée of mine.”

“Yes that soppy girl who came to droop all over Brinkley the month before last, the same one who I once overheard trying to convince your Aunt Agatha that the butterflies are just postman for the flower fairies.

I should have clarified of course, for someone as … well, for someone as well-disposed to bachelor life as you yourself, my darling nephew, you certainly do seem to collect fiancées.

It's much the same way Tom collects silver, I suppose... or that vile cluster of sticky-crumbs and frogs-spawn beneath a school cap, which my sister Agatha quite brazenly admit is her son, goes about pestering starlets for autographs... or even that drunkard Spink-Bottle you brought down with you that time to fling out the prizes at the grammar school speech day who collected newts in my bathtubs.

Do all men have this mania for collecting, I wonder, or is it generally only the feeble-minded among your sex?”

Now this intimation can not simply be allowed to stand, for B. W. Wooster is not to Bassetts, Glossops and Crayes, as G. Second Initial Fink-Nottle is to newts, salamanders and lizards; for one of the two looks upon such creatures with the light of love in his eye, while the other is simply doing what he must to remain _preux._

“I do not collect fiancées, dear aunt” I replied, setting the record straight, “So much I as stumble upon them and sometimes they stick. Why do you need this cow creamer back anyway, if it's so bally beastly?”

“Yes, it really is rather beastly” she said, with a far away expression, like 'One Who Has Seen...' in a science-fiction serial.

“Well from all you've said so far the world seems quite infested with cow creamers,” I said lightly, hoping to speak as the voice of reason, like he in scripture who pours of the soothing oils upon the plains of Gomorrah or similar, “Best to just leave it _in situ_ now that the gift's already been given, what? If you're pining for its absence, just find a new one since they are so multitudinous. Or I suppose I should say a new old one. Whichever you prefer... although ideally one that's not already in the custody of old Spode.”

“That's just the problem,” retorted the venerable lady, with a sigh that could have come from a blast furnace, “if that nude-kneed blighter of a trainee dictator does receive this particular cow creamer as a wedding present from your uncle, it will be likely to cause some embarrassment.”

“Why, is it Modern Dutch?” I said, demonstrating my certain flair for these things.  
  
“If only it were!” said she, thumping the table and causing the water glass to tremble as the aspen when the buffalo come galloping down the savannah at noon, “No. The trouble with this particular cow creamer, it that it happens to belong to Spode already. That is to say, it did belong to him... only I pinched it.”

“Aunt Dahlia!” I cried, reprovingly.  
  
Despite what I may have said earlier about my aunt's latent tendency to kleptomania, I admit I was quite shocked at the turn events had taken.

Pinching a cow creamer that already belonged to one's lawfully-wedded spouse by right of virtue, as had happened on an occasion previous, was one thing. To go about baldly snatching up cow creamers at will was something else altogether.

I even rather wondered if it might not be time to engage the services of my pal Sir Roddy Glossop, specialist to the more discerning class of lunatic, in order to nip this _ad hoc_ redistributive policy my aunt seemed to set to adopt in the bud, before it had chance to blossom into a full-fledged silverware-specific school of socialism.

“Kindly refrain 'Aunt Dahlia-ing' at me like that,” the hard-bitten crackswoman responded, “Don't you think I feel quite wretched enough about it already?

It happened like this. Your uncle and the Earl of Sidcup, after an rather unpromising start, have cosied up considerably over recent months – it's how we came to have Bassetts cluttering up the environs in the first place.

Now your uncle is a sensible sort and not about to don a pair of Black Shorts and go marching up and down with his knees out, demanding British umbrellas for the working man and the abolition of French potatoes. However, he shares a certain sympathy for the Earl of Sidcup. For one thing, it seems our friend Spode – no doubt under the tutelage of that unrepentant spawner of female Bassetts far and wide, old Sir Watkin – has come down with a case of the collecting mania himself.

Now between the topics of antique silver and income tax, he and Tom have found much to bore each other about at late. Tom even – and I could scarcely have believed it were possible had I not been witness to it myself – accepted an invitation to dine at Spode Hall not long ago, in order to see his new chum's burgeoning collection.

Pledged as I am to honour and I obey, I tagged along too. That was my first error. The second was like this: as we were looking over his hoard, I saw a cow creamer than looked suspiciously like the one your uncle had been so set on getting his hands on, that time when you helped me out before...

Anyway, I'd had a few of those Rex West mysteries on my library list and I suppose I got rather carried away. Sensing a conspiracy I scooped it up by slight of hand and pocketed the wretched thing. It was the work of an instant. I was rather surprised at how easy it was.”  
  
“To commit the crime is the easy part,” I said rather sternly, fixing her with my most reproving of looks “The trouble is getting away with it.”

“You put that surprisingly well,” said Dahlia, looking at me as if through new eyes. “Anyway, I felt justified in my action at the time. For you see, I was quite convinced in that moment that all these months of mutual carping about hallmarks and tax bills had been nothing but a ploy to gain admittance to Brinkley Court and swipe Tom's cow creamer for his own collection. Or even perhaps, to restore it to that old magpie Sir Watkyn Bassett, if the two were working in cahoots... and that the dinner invitation _á_ Spode Central was nothing more than the most craven sort of gloating.”  
  
“Yes,” I interjected, at this point in the unfortunate tale, “I've noticed that! They always do seem to go in for gloating, don't they? In the books at any rate. It's a sort of psychological trait among in the criminal mastermind type, I suppose. A flaw in the character. Jeeves would be able to tell you more about it... psychology of the individual and all that. But you'd think they'd give it a miss, wouldn't you? Since they're always getting caught out that way.”

Aunt Dahlia fixed me a look that could shatter safety glass from ten paces.

“Are you quite finished with the literary criticism, my sweet lamb? Good. I shouldn't want to interrupt anything important, such as, for example, the story of the hovering threat to your beloved aunt's liberty and good name. Right, where was I?

Oh yes. At length we returned to the humble home. Safely ensconced, I stood in Tom's study, giddy with victory and expecting noisy congratulations in short order. I showed Tom the cow creamer. He was quite puzzled. He gave me a quizzical glance. I was prepared that he might not whoop and yell with glee at the outset, but I had thought at very least he might cry out curses in the name of Spode's treachery. Instead, he simply asked me where I had got it from. Mere providence prevented me from spilling the beans there and then, because he continued by saying that he had been looking for one similar to send as a wedding present to the happy couple on their upcoming nuptials.”

“Oh dear” I said, for I could sense already the trajectory that was to be mapped from here on in.

“'Oh dear' hardly covers it,” responded Aunt Dahlia bitingly, “What happened next still chills the blood; for it was then I noticed that Tom had his own cow creamer out on the desk in front of him. He'd taken it from the shelves to clean it or something, which is just as well for otherwise I should have revealed myself.

I made up some off the cuff reportage, which explained the existence of the cow creamer I had just purloined without having to resort to the ignominy of confession. How could I let the spouse of my heart and light of my life, in on the degradation of crime into which I had just flung myself? I felt like a chap in a book, when he looks into the adoring eyes of his sweetheart and swears that no, Gladys you gotta believe me that I've not never run with the mob...”

“I've read that one!” I cried out brightly, “' _Blood Will Tell'_ by Rex West, it's a real cracker.”

Aunt Dahlia ignored me, much as a rhinoceros has been known to ignore the hummingbird which has perched upon its thorny hide.

“'I've not never run with the mob...' To which Tom replied 'what good luck, I'm sure Sir Roderick's going to love it' and made plans to whisk it off to the old menace toot sweet. I still thought I should be able to restore it to its rightful owner before Tom had a chance to send it, but in an ill-timed bout of efficiency he had packaged and dispatched the following morning.

I know Madeline has received it, for I received a note back yesterday to say 'thank you for the sweetie moo-cow, and don't I think it's simply darling?'

Now as soon as Spode sees it, he's bound to recognise the blasted thing as his own and think that Tom is simply taunting him. I hate to see a beautiful friendship ruined, particularly as Tom was angling to buy a set of early eighteenth-century egg holders of incomparable rarity and shocking vileness, which Spode had over that very same dinner intimated he might be willing to part with to a dear pal...”

To say I was unmoved would be a lie. Indeed, my heart ached for my once honourable relation, for though she erred and entered headlong into a life of criminality and vice, it had been in noble spirit she came to plunnge and she was not yet to be considered irredeemable. I wondered if there were many like her in Dartmore, hardy souls with sad eyes and long stories. Sensing I was softening to her plight, Aunt Dahlia looked upon me with imploring eye, much as the rhinoceros has been known to implore the hummingbird which has perched upon its thorny hide.

“So now you comprehend my sad dilemma,” she said, wringing a handkerchief between her hands like it had done her personal wrong, “The one small mercy is that the parcel went addressed to Madeline, and so Spode isn't likely to see it until after the wedding... I happen to know he is not spending any time at Totleigh until the ceremony is over and done with.

He says it's because he needs to groom his second-in-command to oversee the Black Shorts while he and Madeline are on honeymoon together – Spode and Madeline that it, not Madeline and the second-in-command. Personally, I think it's because he's afraid that if she stops gawping about the place, plaiting place mats out of buttercups for King Mousy and his faire queane Mrs Sugar Whisker's, and actually takes a good hard look at the blighter swanking about the place in his athletics kit with his knees hanging out, then she'll give a shriek that lasts for a week and half and call the whole thing off in great haste.

But whatever the reason, he's steering clear... which buys us some time. But, my dear, sweet nephew, there is no reason for him to see it at all, if you could just see to doing this smallest of favours for your own flesh and blood, and pinch it back for me before the whole things gets out.”

I sighed, for I was familiar with what was coming next. It was rather like that thing, that is like the thing that an owl might say, but isn't quite... aha, I know the one. It was rather like _deja vu._

“Consider it Bertie...” she is saying, “Consider my peace of mind. And if a beloved aunt's peace of mind is not enough, consider my gratitude. And if my gratitude is not enough, consider Anatole's _gratin de legumes d'hiver avec risole de sole Toulousienne._ Consider it Bertie and let your conscience guide you.”

So thus, landed my dilemma. Despite the heavy overcoat I felt a terrible chill enter into my bones.

“Aunt Dahlia, I sympathise” I said, as an Antarctic winter crept up to the old skeleton, grabbed hold of it firmly and gave it a good, hearty rattling, “Of course I do. Let it not be said that I am without sympathy. Your story would cause a hanging judge to publicly weep... no court could convict you... you would have the sympathy of the popular press and public along with it. Only, I can not help you. The scheme is quite impossible.”

She looked me over with a tolerant eye.

“Gentle Bertie, from another nephew this uncharacteristic selfishness might cause me alarm... perhaps even distress. I might start fear that just as I enter my hour of need, I was to be left in the lurch. But you forget, my fine young louse, that I have heard much the same petty objections from you on previous occasions and yet you always find your way to seeing reason in the end.”  
  
“Well not this time, Aunt Dahlia,” I answered, applying myself manfully.  
  
“'Well not this time, Aunt Dahlia' to me is like the refrain of a popular song,” she said whimsically, patting my hand from across the table, “One that they had been playing in all the fashionable places the year before and that you hear again with a certain fondness, having forgotten all about it in the meantime. If you ever do go on the stage, Bertie, you must promise to sing 'Well not this time, Aunt Dahlia'. It would be a guaranteed smash”  
  
“I really do mean it, Aunt Dahlia,” I said, maintaining the positive disposish.  
  
“'I really do mean it, Aunt Dahlia' is like the refrain of a song I like quite a lot less,” said she, gripping hold of my wrist with some purpose, “But still seem to keep hearing about the place without ever once requesting it. I would much rather we skip ahead, to 'Oh all right then, Aunt Dahlia' which I personally feel is your finest number, Bertie.”

I attempt to laugh in the face of all discouragements, but the face of all discouragements sits resolute and laughs right back.

The she-wolf in aunt's clothing awaits my response.

It is too late, I mean go forth boldly and yet I am deterred.

“Well,” I offered up weakly, “How am I to get the blasted cow creamer out from amongst all the rest of wedding debris?”

“Now that is where inside information becomes our advantage. You see, in preparation for this rather delicate operation I have placed an operative of my own on the inside.”

My jaw dropped. I had never held with those gloomy coves who sit about in newspaper editorial offices, bashing out five-hundred words on how this tendency towards literary slippage in modern letters is rotting the brains and turning the heads of a once sensible populace.

Quite apart from the fact that there is little evidence the populace was ever sensible – for I have seen the depictions, and from what I can tell the past was full of young men in velvet trousers and maidens who'd slipped face first into streams while wearing their night – I felt the argument was unfair.

Leave the parlour maid her novelette, I say and may she sup and slurp cheerily on the rich romantic goo within. For it just such starried-eyed, hands-clasping-bosom, rapturously-sinking slop that helps to fill Mr and Mrs Bingo 'Rosie M Banks' Little's feed trough. And setting all other considerations to one side, it happens to suit me very well that said trough stays filled to the brim, for I happen to dine their fairly frequently.

In a similar vein, why rob the baker's boy of his mystery novel? They're dashed exciting stuff for a start and if that weren't enough to convince you, just think of this: were Percy Gorringe not bringing home a goodish slab of the bacon in the guise of Rex West, I should almost certainly have had to marry Lady Florence Craye, who has been known to dish up great ladelfuls of the Nietzsche and serve it to one cold and garnished with thin slithers of _'Types of Ethical Theory'_.

And yet all this talk of inside operatives was making me wonder if perhaps the Lord Chancellor might not need to intervene after all, for clearly my dear Aunt Dahlia had gone quite off the deep end and plunged into a state of detective-fiction induced delirium.

“What do you mean 'an inside operative'?” I probed, for having read many of the same titles that had proven so deleterious to the aunt in question, I was no slouch myself where it comes to modern methods of interrogation.

“I mean, I have an agent stationed at Totleigh Towers, ready and awaiting orders. Ever since old Watty, bought up the place Madeline's had to adjust to running a far bigger household to the one she'd been used to before. Back when he was still scraping together pennies as a magistrate, levying extra fines whenever the coal bill was due or Madeline needed a new nightdress, they'd had no more than a skeleton crew of domestic staff. Just an old French nurse, a cook, a maid-of-all work and a woman who'd come in once a morning to char. Nowadays however, dear Madeline's got all sorts of housemaids, under-butlers and goodness knows what other annoyances to contend with. She was looking for the sort of parlourmaid who wouldn't do juggling tricks with the family porcelain and so I happened to loan her one of mine. She was ever so grateful. She wrote a little poem for me in my scrapbook. Remind me to show it to you, if you ever start choking on a fish bone.”

“Then why can't your parlourmaid pinch it back for you?” I asked, for I could see with some annoyance that this had all already gone far too far, and through my foot was hovering in the ether, on the very edge of being put down, the rug was about to be whooshed out from underneath it.

“Bertie!” said Mrs Dahlia 'Moriaty' Travers, shaking her head “I am shocked you would ever suggest it. Thieving is a profession for gentlemen, not parlourmaids. How could I give the girl a good character if I knew she was a thief? And how could I send the poor girl away without a good character?”  
  
I saw the logic in my aunt's argument and I let her continue, listening with the growing dread of the inevitable.

“My operative will ensure the cow creamer is marked and visible, and the room is unsecured,” she explained, getting into the meat of the plan, while I looked around the room in vain to see if an Act of Divine intervention might be lurking in a corner ready to deliver me, “You will enter through the window, making sure to leave enough evidence to deter suspicion away from members of the household.

Sprinkle the sort of stuff that Sherlock Holmes always finds about the place. Perhaps you could carry some dirt from Colchester in your pockets and leave it on the carpet, or fling Peruvian tobacco about the place or drop a harpoon on the carpet... I don't mind... use your discretion.

Then, when you have secured the carbuncle and stashed it safely, return to HQ.

We shall then have Jeeves put it into hock, wearing false whiskers and leaving a false name on the chit. Then you shall forget all about it. The day after the chit runs out, with your Uncle Tom on my arm, I shall pass idly by the pawn-broker's window, where the cow creamer will be languishing. I shall recognise the repulsive thing immediately and say, 'oh dear, isn't that the cow creamer we gave to the Lord and Lady Sidcup, which was so unfortunately stolen before the wedding?'. With which assessment he will readily concur. Then we shall go in and buy it back.”  
  
Now I confess that up to this point, I had been following the particulars of the plan my aunt was setting out no great joy, but also with no great confusion.

I wouldn't quite say that child could have come up with it, but strip away those superficial fripperies such as inside agents and tobacco from Peru, it was clearly a plan of the generic sort, cut of a common cloth and stitched together hastily, out of need.

But this sudden talk of buying back the cow creamer had me flummoxed.

“How does that leave you better off than you began, my addled aunt?” I put in with no small hauteur, “For surely the success of the plan hinges on being well-rid of the thing as soon as humanly possible or else risk exposure?”  
  
“Now listen, fathead, because this is the subtly of the thing,” said she, “When we return the lost cow creamer to the Sidcups, Lord and Lady, old Spode will see at once that it is his very own purloined cow creamer, not the wedding-gift cow creamer which, recollect if you can, he has never seen. He will assume that while the wedding-gift cow creamer remains sadly lost to the underworld, that through the workings of Providence his purloined cow creamer has been restored to him.”

“Aha!” I exclaim, noticing a fatal snag in the plan, “But what if he has not noticed his own cow creamer is missing? He is a man of woefully underdeveloped intelligence, it is true. The brain has been sacrificed for the brawn. If he has not noticed the original is missing, he will realise it is gone when he sees it has come back … if you see what I mean. Is that not a dangerous state of affairs, aunt of mine, liable to raise suspicion even in the most embryonic of intelligences?  
  
“No and I'll tell you why,” said the sneak-thief-cum-mastermind, as if touched by the flame of Jeeves, “He will assume that the same person, or gang of persons, who sneaked the wedding-gift cow creamer were responsible for the theft of his own purloined cow creamer. Professional thieves you see, stealing to order. Sir Watty will be able to tell him about how a similar thing once happened to a cow creamer formerly in his own possession and your Uncle Tom will be in his element, detailing all his various anti-burglary measures and the near misses he himself has himself sustained with thieves underneath his roof. Then the three of them can have a virtual ball, banging on about how if only hanging were practised more widely in Local Authority schools this sort of moral degeneration would be all snuffed out by next Christmas. And all will be as chums. Pretty good, for an old aunt eh what?”

I admit I was rather impressed. Were it not for the sad fact that it 'twere I, who risked my liberty in furtherance of the scheme, I should have said it was a jolly good one. There was only point one correction I could offer:

“It's not bad, aged r.,” I conceded thoughtfully, “Just a minor oversight. You say when Jeeves puts the thing in hock, he ought to wear false whiskers. Not so. For although some silly blighters think it is, camouflage is actually not a mere matter of disguise. Oh no! What it's really all about is tricking the eye into not noticing what it's looking at even though it is looking because that's what eyes tend to do, you see? And the way to do that is to just sort of act natural and like there's nothing-to-see-here-so-now-let's-move-along-please.

Have you ever noticed that man in false whiskers is very conspicuous? You wonder what he's hiding, in a way that you do not wonder about a man who has nothing to hide... because he isn't hiding anything.

It's all a sort of confidence trick. Like how your sister wanted me to marry a jewel thief, because her brother was wearing a clerical collar and so Aunt Agatha couldn't see that he was not in fact this beazle's brother in any shape or form, but was in fact a fellow jewel thief and just as bad, if not worse than the first. She saw the collar, where she should have seen the cuffs – oh I say, that one was pretty good, you see, cuffs as in handcuffs, which he should have been in because ...”

“Yes, yes,” Aunt Dahlia said impatiently, cutting short what was shaping up to be a rather sparkling specimen of gay badinage, “You know before all the blithering towards the end, what you said actually makes rather a lot of sense.”  
  
“Well you must attribute it wholesale to Jeeves, aunt of mine,” I said, generously, “For it was he who came up with the wheeze.”

“I hope he had recovered from his Bolshevism when you return from luncheon, Bertie my dear, for I hate to think what might happen to you without him.”

And she sounded quite sincere.

 

 


	2. A Female Impersonator

Jeeves was in the kitchen chivvying-on the old silverware to a brighter better state of being, when I returned from Harridges in pensive mood.

He had slung an apron over the old shirtsleeves and rolled up his cuffs.

Now, shocking as it may seem to my established readership, but I had the distinct impression as I opened up the door that the old paragon was actually whistling a jaunty tune. To those of you new to the study of the manner and habits of the greater spotted Jeeves, jaunty tunes have never been his _modus operandi_ , for he is the typology that is simultaneously both strong and silent.

So seldom has he been observed to grin, beam or cast forth a radiant smile (or indeed gasp, grimace or stand agape), that were the modern medical authorities to come to know of his condition, they should have warned the fellow that – without a strict programme of targeted exercises – there are muscles in his lips and jaw which are liable to atrophy through lack of use.

“Jeeves!” I exclaimed, but the whistling – if indeed it ever was – had ceased.

“Good afternoon, sir” he said, putting down the silverware and cloth and fixing me with a sympathetic eye, “I trust Mrs Travers is well?”

“Too well, Jeeves,” I answered by way of reply, and flopped myself down into a kitchen chair “She is – as I believe they say in the police courts – found up to her old tricks again”

I relaid to him the sorry tale of the purloined cow creamer and the details of Aunt Dahlia's plan for its retrieval. Jeeves listened with his characteristic thoughtfulness.

“The plan is a sound one, eh Jeeves? Only I freely admit I do not relish the part I am to play in it.”

“I am not sure, sir” said Jeeves, a little rummily, “That I relish my projected part in the endeavour either. I refer to the considerable risk incurred by putting the contraband into hock. Should Lord Sidcup bring to bear the full weight of his influence in order to retrieve the object, any legitimate broker who took possession of it may be subject to police inquiries which would undoubtedly lead back to myself. Even if I were able to find a broker willing to deal discretely in 'hot goods', as it were, it would leave us liable to the full penalty of the law should at any point the scheme be discovered. No, I cannot condone it sir.”

Jeeves was right, of course. Old Dahlia had become so engrossed in the plotting, she had failed to spot the obvious. That is to say, that while once all was said and done even a volcano with the toothache such as Spode may not wish to see the old girl clapped in the darbies and dragged off some desolate dungeon, once the cow creamer was reported stolen it would be a matter for the police.

“Alright, Jeeves,” I said, “So what do you suggest?”

“I shall give some thought to the matter, sir.”

I slink away to rid myself of the Turkish trousers and attempt to settle myself in for the afternoon with a Rex West. Crime as a profession however, now I was considering renewing my apprenticeship in it,  
had become considerably less diverting. I put the book down.  
The following days passed uneventfully enough and fortunately no more was said the Turkish trousers.

I had dined with Bingo and wife, which was a pleasant if rather perplexing evening and had returned home to find Jeeves still awake and in an unusually cheerful frame of mind. Indeed, when he brought me in a nightcap, he seemed to zip around the apartment like a zephyr at a funfair.

“The bridge tournament went to your advantage, then Jeeves?” I say, as I took the drink proffered.

As I sipped, I gestured that Jeeves should sit down too and pour himself a little of the fortifying draft.

It may sound rather dangerously socialistic to the outsider, but when you live in such close quarters as we two, over time the usual hierarchy between master and servant is liable to become some what fuzzy around the edges. I had long viewed Jeeves as a friend and confidante, over and above his role as factotum. Many long dinner engagements, in company that wanted for a certain sparkle, had passed more easily with the thought that when I returned to the happy home I should have Jeeves with whom to digest the night's events.

For when you have lived in close association as long as Jeeves and I, you come to know each others habits with a certain easy familiarity. Just as I was presaged to shine once again in the upcoming annual Drone's club dart's tournament, I knew by now that Jeeves was more than capable of mopping up nicely when his fellow Junior Ganymede members started dealing out the hands at bridge.

I've never been much of a one for bridge myself. All that talk of tricks makes my head swim, and anyway when it comes down to it, it's really just a matter of finding a decent partner.

He seemed however, rather on edge all of a sudden. The zippy, zephyrishness of the previous moment had quite evaporated. I wondered if the cards had been the unfortunate type and I hadn't accidentally hit upon rather a sore subject.

By my observations, it was rather gingerly that he poured himself a drink and sat down in the chair opposite.

“Oh it was quite satisfactory sir, thank you”

“Good tricks and whatnot?”

“Something like that, sir, yes.”

I finish my drink rather quickly after that, while Jeeves remained taciturn surpassing even his own usual exemplary standards of tight-lippedness. If he ever did decide to go in for a change of occupation and try his had at the mob boss business, I should think they shouldn't have much trouble deciding what to call him; for old Reggie 'tight lips' Jeeves was giving nothing away.

Now by way of an aside, I have a sort of sneaking suspicion that Jeeves does not realise I know his first name, but of course I had it from the agency when he first came to work for me. One day I mean to surprise him with it. I believe the effect would surpass even the Luminous Rabbit in terms of shock value alone.

“Well good night, old thing” I said when the glass was drained, and headed of to bed down for the night.

But sleep I could not, for I knew that something new was happening beneath the unruffled surface and uncreased shirts of my man Jeeves.

Still waters, it is said, run deep. I can neither prove nor disprove this, for I was never in contention for any geography prizes, preferring to concentrate my mental faculties in the arena of scripture knowledge to no small success. However, something was moving now beneath those still waters and I was not sure whether I ought to worried.

When blessed with a paragon like Jeeves, many men will try to poach him away from you. Up to this point, all inducements had been met by my man with a firm _nolle prosequi_.

Yet could I hold off the inevitable forever?

Perhaps it was not to head up a rabble of Mafiosi, he should leave me; but I feared the end result might be the same.

The matter of the Turkish trousers had filled me with a terrible foreboding. If Jeeves had allowed me to parade around Knightsbridge like someone out pinning posters to lampposts, looking for his lost hareem, then might it be a sign that Jeeves was already in the process of washing his hands of me?

I should not have blamed him, if he had. But the thought of it was enough to bring tears to the eyes, for I could no longer picture the pattern of my life without him.

I knew in the very depths of my soul that I should have traded a thousand white mess jackets, ten thousand banjoleles for the man.

Jeeves had once intimated that when a wife goes in the front door, the valet goes out the back. I had the unbearable but not unfounded, fear that the same might hold true in reverse. For if Jeeves packed up his suitcase, put on his bowler hat and bid me a fond _adieu_ , who knew what benighted young female of the species might come forward bidding me an even fonder _bonjour_.

And without Jeeves on hand to offer up all lawful impediments, who's to say the whole thing might not go off without a hitch?

Might it not be that in a few short months hence Jeeves should be reading Spinoza cooped up in the yacht of an American millionaire, while I should be sitting and sipping the nightcap with a Mrs Honoria Wooster? And worse, if it were a Mrs Florence Wooster with whom should be sitting, perhaps we should not be sipping anything at all. Perhaps she should simply hand me a glass of barley water or some camomile tea, while she whispered in my ear sweet nothings re. ubermenschen and whether or not God had been feeling rather under the weather recently and may have been about to take a turn for the worse.

Now before womankind swoops in to castigate me for my choice of representatives put forth within this scenario, I must say _mea culpa_. It is true that Lady Florence Craye and Miss Honoria Glossop are two of its more grisly specimens, who rank high in the catalogue of matrimonial threats, but the fault does not fall on them alone.

For even young ladies who would make a fine match for some other young gentleman, have a tendency to send me cringing from the altar. A case in point; while at one time I might have considered a Mrs Roberta 'Bobbie' Wooster to have made a pretty good sort of spouse and helpmete; age and wisdom have shown me otherwise. For not only do 'Bobbie and Bertie' sound like the two principals in one of the more risible sorts of music hall, comedy acts, Miss Wickham – as she mercifully still remains – is rather too much Tabasco for a retiring gentleman such as myself. We are temperamentally unsuited.

Yet the more young ladies I become acquainted with, the more I come to realise that any blame for this temperamental unsuitability must surely be mine alone. For if one is to have a spouse and helpmete, then I'm not so sure if 'strong and silent' mightn't fit the bill rather better than 'corking profile'. Someone of a tolerant and stoical disposition, intelligent enough for both of us but happy to mould only discretely, if at all.

The trouble is, they tend not to build modern girls along those lines.

My old friend Bingo, before he met the esteemed Mrs B., could fall in love with a girl before breakfast, have proposed to her – quite on purpose – by lunch and had his heart broken by dinner; only to repeat the process the following day with a different young lady. Other young men of my acquaintance will perform similar feats.

Even those who are more steadfast in their affections have been known to lose all leave of their senses in the furtherance of the mating-ritual. Ordained ministers of the Established Church, such as my good pal Stinker Pinker, have gone about cheerily committing acts of pillage and assault in their own parishes to keep their lady-loves in good cheer. I mean to say, it's a rummy business love.

It was with just such gloomy thoughts in mind that I finally fell asleep.

I awoke with the light peeping gently thought the curtains and Jeeves hovering nearby with the tea tray.

How should I ever face a morning without him?

The days that followed did nothing to alleviate my fears that there was something amiss with my man.

While he continued to performed his duties with both diligence and even a certain aplomb, he seemed like one who is sleep-walking. Which is not to say, he was going about in his pyjamas with his arms outstretched and his mouth open, but that he seemed present and yet absent at the same time; which was rather like a sort of riddle if you think about it.

Usually when I had enigmas of this sort weighing heavily upon my brow, I had been in the habit of simply laying them in Jeeves' lap. He would then invariably find some means by which to just sort of evaporate them on my behalf. I had become quite accustomed to this brow-to-lap enigma-pipeline, which is not to say I was not still stirred by Jeeves' remarkable faculties in these matters. I would have been the first to say that when it came to the evaporation of enigmas he was foremost amongst all men. But with the thought that Jeeves may have been on the point of announcing his departure from my service, his skills in this and in virtually every other arena impressed me ever more acutely.

He was not gone and get already I missed him with a feeling like the sort homesickness I used to get as a schoolboy, even after I no longer had a home of my own to return to.

Just one of the arenas in which his aptitude was not to be equalled was displayed yet again at the race-meeting we attended, by way of alibi, on the day on the planned re-purloining from Madeline Bassett of Spode's cow creamer.

It was the last fine day of autumn and an unusually fine day it was too. The Spode-Bassett hitching was scheduled a mere three days hence and I was starting to feel the weight of a burden lift already.

The race-meeting had been Jeeves' idea, for neither my aunt nor myself had considered it necessary to construct an alibi, in case I happened to be spotted in the vicinity of Totleigh Towers on the night of the burglary. Jeeves is nothing if not thorough, however I suspected he may have had his own reasons for suggesting the particular alibi he had hit upon. Jeeves is the only man who is not a bookie who has ever managed to turn a consistent profit via the race track. He has a knack. I was therefore willing to take advice from him in this, as in other matters.

“Jeeves,” I said to him, as we sat in the cosy snug of a country inn and shared the fatted calf – for he had earned it, “How is it you do it? What is your system; is it the sort of thing young men send away for in the back of sporting papers, promised in instalments for the low price of half a crown a week to be paid monthly? Or is it some sort of pre cogs and whatsit?”

“Precognition, sir?” he said, “I shouldn't think so. I think perhaps it is combination of having the right sort of eye for the horses, an amateur’s appreciation for the mathematical disciplines of probability and statistics and a degree of good luck.”

Now interesting through all that may be to some of the specialists among you, perhaps the content of what my man had just said may not strike the casual reader as being particular noteworthy.

However, it struck me for being the chummiest he had been in several weeks.

As I have previously outlined and to my increasing concern, Jeeves had been growing more and more distant of late. I believed I could now identify the locus of this change to the morning after the night that Catsmeat and I had set about cheering up young Threepwood.

It is true that for some months my man had seemed a little restless, but something had happened around that time to intensify whatever internal storm was brewing beneath my valet's darkened brows. That night had been an unexceptional one however, as far as I could tell. The incident of the Turkish trousers at Harridges the following morning still brought me out in a cold sweat, but I had subsequently gone through my wardrobe with the metaphorical fine-toothed comb, rooting out any offending garments with extreme prejudice.

If it wasn't the trousers, I didn't know what it was.

We passed the rest of the meal in pleasant conversation and things all felt quite as they ought to be for the evening. I even forgot my nervousness at the prospect of scaling Totleigh Towers by dead of night and sneaking away with their silver-ware.

But as goes the way of all flesh, the meal was grass before we even knew what had hit us.

An hour or so later, the old barman called last orders and with a final fortifier I headed to the two-seater.

Jeeves drove, for he had been appointed as getaway driver. He was to wait in the lane outside the house, while I was to enter the morning room through a set of French windows, take the cow creamer and scarper sharpish.

After all too short a time, the house loomed ahead of us like a haunted mansion.

I crept up the drive, remembering as I went to keep to the grass and not the gravel. My heart was thumping like Kit Carrington's percussion section and my nerves of steel were already starting to fray like worn-out elastic. No light appeared in any window, however, which was as good an omen as ever one could have hoped for in such a sitch. and the dogs were in their kennels.

Now I should mention at this point that the moon was a full one.

Aunt Dahlia's mole on the inside – that it to say, her parlour-maid-turned-spy-master, not the blind mammal of the burrowing persuasion – had told her that the dogs were never let lose on the night of a full moon, because that was when Madeline liked to let her bunnies hop around the rose garden in order to attend the Fairy Ball. Now whether or not the local fox community had been informed of this policy of Madeline's, I did not know, for the scheme seemed like a pretty dotty one to me and full of obvious flaws. Still I was not one to question it, for it was not my scheme.

After much back and forth, Jeeves and my aunt had decided that I should be better off attempting the burglary on a night when the dogs were safely locked away, than to go on a darker night and risk becoming a nourishing dinner for a pack of baying hounds.

Though modern philosophy has its critics, I found much to commend about the new not-being-devoured-by-dogs school of thought, but while the light of moon made it easier for me to see my surroundings and keep my bearings, it also made it rather easier for me to be spotted should anyone happen to glance out over the grounds.

I stuck as closely as possible to the shadows at the side of the house, until I came to the large French windows which opened from the lawn and into the morning room.

To my relief and surprise the doors were unlocked and the cow creamer had been left clearly marked and visible for me by the pulp-fiction parlour maid, and so I popped it in my pocket without the slightest difficulty and quickly moved on to the legging it phase of proceedings.

It was all going so well, that I became almost complacent. At that stage I even wondered that f Jeeves did leave me for an exciting new role as mob boss, if I shouldn't like to turn my hand to the gentleman-thieving business after all, if only to fill the long hours of his absence.

I crept back around the house and was just edging myself past a privet border, when I heard a sound that made the blood run as ice within my veins.

“Mr Fox?” said an unmistakable, droopy, drippy, sugary female voice, “Mr Fox, is that you, you naughty old thing? Get away from here, for you are not invited to the Fairy Ball this midnight.”

I pressed myself against the bushes and hoped for deliverance.

Then the scuffling sound of light footsteps on the path, a lantern beam swung towards me and a gasp of horror:

“Bertie! Perhaps you are Mr Fox after all...”

“Oh, what ho!” I said, facing the inevitable.

“Oh Bertie, this is all too much!”

Madeline Bassett stood in front of me in a frilled nightdress and dressing gown, with a large bunny rabbit clasped to her bosom.

Then, just as I had started to suspect the spectre which had appeared before could become no more gory, she began to cry. It was nearing Halloween night after all.

“I say,” I said, for I cannot bear to see a woman weeping, or anyone else for that matter, “Cheer up old thing, it can't be all that bad.”

She lifted the rabbit to her face and began to use it as a handkerchief.

I extracted one of my own – handkerchiefs that is to say, not rabbits for not taking after my Uncle Henry in that regard I had none of the latter about my person – and gave it to her.

“Oh Bertie!” she sighed, covering territory that I was pretty certain we'd been over pretty well enough already, “You needn't tell me why you've come here tonight... you hoped merely to glimpse me through my window, like a knight in a storybook. Tell me, are you very unhappy, Bertie?”

“Oh no, gosh, I'm pretty cheerful sort of cove most of the time”

“I am very unhappy, Bertie,” said Madeline, holding the bunny rabbit tight against her, “Just like faire Guinevere I thought I desired nothing more than to be guide and helpmeet to a strong and noble leader. And yet... these last few weeks I have had my first bitter taste of how it must ever be to come second to a greater cause. Roderick has been absent. He has been preparing his own latter-day knights of the round table, his Black Shorts, for a long and bitter campaign. He has sent me telegrams and one on occasional a box of very pretty camisoles, but it is not the same as being at his side. Now here you stand before me... my own dear Lancelot du Lac. I am torn: between my duty, to become the future mother of a nation who must often wait alone; or to succumb my selfish desire for a life of obscurity, a life to be lived ever at your side!”

“Oh, well. When you put it like that, couldn't Guinevere just sort buck up?” I offered, but it hadn't quite seemed to hit the right sort of note. I tried again;

“I mean, you're a dashed sight better than her anyway, Madeline. You exist for a start. Also, you love Spode er... Spodecup... Sidcup. And if Guinevere were always at Lancelot's side, don't you think she'd rather start to get the pip with him eventually? I mean, perhaps he used to crack boiled eggs with his teeth or wear side whiskers.”

“Bertie, sweet Bertie. It is rare that we get a chance to intervene in history the moment before it starts to repeat upon itself. I, Guinevere, you Lancelot. Had the two wed, before Guinevere had already pledged herself eternally to another, then Camelot would never have fallen!”

“Gosh!” I said, because when all's said what can one say, “But I say, since she was eternally pledged and whatnot, surely it's too late now? I mean, yes it all happened a long time ago, but it's too late to go about changing the story now just because there's been some alterations to the cast list.”

“I had... I had not thought of it like that. Bertie... Lancelot, you have the soul of a true chevalier. But if we cannot change the story, then why should history repeat in the first place? Oh Bertie, I will be you wife”

“You can't!” I exclaimed, and somewhere nearby a dog barked in its kennel.

“But I don't understand...”

“I mean to say, I'd like nothing better, Guinevere or... er Madeline. Only, I mean to say, dash it, I've already said I'd marry someone else.”

“Oh,” said Madeline, slackening her grip upon the squirming bunny rabbit.

“You were absolute right,” I continued, babbling somewhat but beginning to get a grip on things once more, “I came here tonight, hoping to gaze upon you from afar... but um not as afar as I would have been in London, knowing that only too soon we should both be wed and er... definitely not to each other.”

“Who is she?” Madeline asked quietly, resembling in her white nightdress and under moon light, a deflated sail.

“You don't know her.”

“Bertie, I know you. I know your... noble temperament.... your noble... Oh I should like to believe you, to believe you have chosen to create happiness in my absence, to strive to love another... only, I can't quite believe it.”

“I'll err, show you a photograph,” I said, patting at my pockets madly as if a suitable one might materialise within through power of necessity alone. “Oh dash it! I've come out without one.”

“Send me a photograph of her, Bertie... of the two of you together” said Bassett in a strangely small and bloodless voice, “Send it to me tomorrow, or I shall call off the wedding and we shall elope together instead. You shalln't stop me. Father shall be cross of course, but I am quite willing to do it.”

And with that she turned and ran back towards the house, while I turned and ran back towards the car. On the running question, it seemed, we were both quite in perfect accord.

The bunny rabbit sat forgotten on the path, nibbling a stem of grass. I hoped for its sake, that Mr Fox had taken what Madeline had said re. lack of invite to hear.

Once safely back in the two-seater, I began to recover somewhat. It had been a close call and I certainly wasn't in the clear just yet, but at least I had bought myself some time.

In the usual circs. I should have turned the whole thing over to Jeeves immediately, but in light of the way things had been between us of late, I held back.

We drove in silence and I pondered.

Were Jeeves truly to leave me – and despite our chumminess at the inn, I was fearful it might yet come to that – then I should need to learn how to perfect this fiancée dodging business without his assistance. As the reassuring hum of the little motor increased the distance between me and Madeline, I began to feel that all things considered I had acquitted myself rather well.

I ran the situation over in my head and broke it down as follows:

1) Madeline would jilt Spode on the eve of their wedding, unless I sent her a photograph of myself and my fictive fiancée  
2) If Madeline jilted Spode, she would expect to elope with me with all possible speed  
3) I needed to send a photograph of myself and my fiancée to Madeline, therefore;  
4) I needed a fiancée, and;  
5) I needed a photograph the two of us together.

And given the short turn around time on all of this, I needed both as soon as humanly possible.

Now of course, my fiancée needn't actually be of the traditional sort; that is to say, one who was anticipating our matrimony with all sincerity and a fluttering heart.

Marriage to me was a prospect from which many good women would run shrieking for the hills and I should not blame them. I had told Madeline that she did not know the woman who I was to marry, which was just as well for I didn't know her yet either. On a previous occasion, I had used the services of a theatrical agency to hire a fiancée on short-term lease. While that arrangement had ended in serious complications which were left to Jeeves to resolve, I was convinced that with the right personnel a similar scheme might work rather better on this occasion.

While Jeeves put the car in the garage, I telephoned Catsmeat.

“Who the hell is this and do you know what time it is?” said the voice on the end of the line, once I had managed to be put through.

“Catsmeat, it's me Bertie. I'm glad you're up. I have an emergency.”

“Bertie! What on earth are you calling for at this hour? Are you mad, must I come round and have you committed? Can't Jeeves do it? I'm sure he's much better at committing people than I should be... but now you've woken me up I'll pitch in if I have to.”

“I need to know the name of a reputable theatrical agent.”

“What the devil are you talking about? It's two in the morning!”

“I'll explain another time. Just tell me the name of one”

“There's no such thing. They're all louses. Oh alright, do you have a pen? I'll give the you the number of mine. He may be a louse, but he's only a louse of the second order.”

I took down the number and checked it twice with Catsmeat, thanking him profusely like a man who has received a reprieve from the foot the gallows.

“Oh all right, now stow it. On and Bertie, do me a favour? Next time you need help finding mythical creatures in the middle of the night, why don't you call up that girl who talks to the fairies, Madeline Bassett? I'm sure she'd be only too delighted to help.”

At that I dropped the telephone receiver like it was a poisonous snake, but I had the phone number and that was all that mattered until the morrow.

Jeeves came in, having stashed the car.

“May I bring you some tea, sir?” he asked, looking at me with a touching concern, “Only, if I might take the liberty of saying so, you are looking rather pale. It is the adrenaline response, I should think sir.”

“Thank you, Jeeves,” I said, following him to the kitchen and sitting down while he filled the kettle.

“I trust everything went as planned, sir” he said, spooning tea leaves into the pot.

“Oh what... oh yes, Jeeves. All to plan.”

“You have the cow creamer, sir?”

“Right here in my pocket.”

Now it is usually at this point in the narrative, at which I reach into my pocket only to find the dashed thing has disappeared.

“Great Scott, Jeeves, it's not there!”

“Perhaps the other pocket, sir?”

And would you have guessed it, but that's exactly where it was!

“I could see the bulge, sir.”

“The bulge?”

“Yes, sir. The bulge in your pocket.”

“Oh right Jeeves, the bulge.”

“Your tea sir,” he said, depositing the old tissue-restorer on the table before me.

“You'll join me Jeeves?”

“Thank you, sir.”

We drank our tea in companionable silence. I found myself studying the familiar face, as if it were unfamiliar, except because it was familiar it was especially pleasant.

“Jeeves...” I began to say, but I did not know what I meant to say to finish it.

Jeeves... are you happy? Jeeves... are you leaving me? Jeeves will you help me... again and again and again?

“Yes, sir”

“Oh nothing.”

The following morning I called Catsmeat's agent.

May I add with particular emphasis, that I made the call at eight o'clock; that is to say the eight o'clock that comes even before nine o'clock in the morning.

A secretary answered the phone and told me that as luck would have it, her employer's house had burned down last night and so he had been obliged to sleep in the office or else they shouldn't usually be open so early.

So I suppose things were looking up from the start.

“What's it you need, sonny?” said Catsmeat's Louse of Second Order

“Well, I suppose what I need is someone who can impersonate a woman for me.”

“A female impersonator?”

“Well yes, if that's what you'd call it.”

“What do you need one for, a revue or something?”

“Photographs. Just a one-off thing. But I need her today, and as soon as possible.”

“This is a reputable agency.”

“Oh yes, so I've heard.”

“We don't supply talent for amateur theatricals.”

“I wouldn't ask you to.”

“And she'll be keeping her clothes on.”

“I should jolly well hope so!”

We discussed fees and for a pretty reasonable price, the louse – who as louses go seemed pretty decent to me – agreed to supply the necessary. He rang off, telling me he'd call back in half an hour and so I waited.

An hour and half later, the phone rang.

“I've spoken to one of our best girls and she's willing to do it for the fee we discussed” said the voice at the end of the line, before adding sternly, “ However, she told me to tell you that she's a married woman and respectable nowadays, so no funny stuff. Did you say you were taking the photographs yourself?”

“Oh good heavens, no. I thought we would go to a photographic studio together.”

“Hmm... well it's your gig. Although I'm not quite sure if I'm getting what it is you're getting out of all this. There's a studio we always use for headshots – go there, they're not the question-asking types either, which is probably for best in that case. Doll'll meet you there at noon, I call and let them know that you're coming. Mr Gloucester, wasn't it?”

I take down the address.

“Oh and did you want her ready dressed when you get there?”

The question took me by surprise, but I suppose theatrical circles are rather different to the ones I move in.

“Yes, I should think so.”

“Right. Well, be sure to have the money in cash because – not meaning any offence by this, as I'm sure you'll agree – but I wouldn't risk taking a cheque from you.”

“Quite understood.”

Having made the necessary arrangements I felt full to the brim with purpose and resolution. I imagine it was how it must feel to be one of those dynamic, thrusting young chaps, one used to hear about in American newspaper advertisements; who start out in the mail room on a Monday and by Friday have caught the boss's eye and become Junior Under-Secretary to the Divisional Manager all for having chosen Shoal's Shaving Soap.

Jeeves had brought in the morning tea tray as serenely as ever, when I had first awoken in the bitter dawn. However, though he said nothing, I was quite certain I had unnerved him with my lark impersonation. He kept giving me the sort of looks a lion tamer might give to one of his more recalcitrant lions who had – one day, entirely unprompted – stood up on his hind legs, danced a can-can and informed the chap he was from now on embracing a life of vegetarianism and pacifist politics.

My business with Catsmeat's agent concluded, I washed and dressed and asked Jeeves to bring me my breakfast at the table for a change. I even considered asking for him to substitute in some of 'Bramwell's Best Branflakes; for a wholesome start to the day', but that seemed to be pushing it somewhat, even in this new and more dynamic epoch into which I had just entered.

I ate heartily of the eggs and b., not sparing the toast, for already my sense of light and optimism was returning. Having breakfasted, I informed Jeeves that I would be out for lunch and gave him the afternoon off. After all, getaway driver was not originally a part of the briefing that the agency had provided for the poor chap when he first came to work for me, and the previous night must have been an exacting one.

I walked leisurely to the photographic studio that Catsmeat's agent had recommended and stepped inside.

It had little to distinguish it from any other photographic studio, apart from a faint aura of seediness and a few recognisable faces among the framed headshots, fading on the dingy walls. The proprietor oozed over. It was rather how it should have been to encounter an oil slick, which for whatever reason had been dressed up in a striped shirt and toupee and put in charge of a small photographic studio. That is to say, one had to overcome a certain natural disinclination before extending the hand of friendship. He was a cheerful enough sort of cove however, and greeted me very nearly by name.

“Mr Gloucester, your … client is here already.”

“Oh jolly good. Ah and it's Wooster, by the way.”

“No, no it's not... it's old Doll in today. She's on top form as usual!”

We stepped into the studio, where I was greeted by a tall and striking woman, built rather along the lines of Honoria Glossop but considerably more glamorous, albeit in a theatrical way.

The woman extended a bejewelled hand, which I shook cheerfully.

“Doll Evans, pleased to meet you Mr Gloucester.”

“It's ah.. oh never mind. Call me Bertie.”

She had a rather deep and sonorous voice, which made me think of something.

“Are you a singer, Ms Evans?” I asked.

“Among other things... only, call me Doll, darling. When you talk like that, it makes a girl nervous. You sound like a police officer raiding a nightclub... did you know I met my husband that way?”

I apologise and my ersatz-fiancée laughs.

“You know, darling” she said, turning to the photographer, “If I'd had known he'd be such a nice young gentleman, I might not have mentioned my Cyril so early in the show. Too late now! Where do you want me, my love? For you can have me anywhere you like me, as the chorus girl said to the Bishop.”

“Well it's like this you see...” I began, and by the time I had explained the whole situation, both Doll and the photographer were stood speechless. It takes a lot of shock the theatrical set, but somehow I had done it. I suppose it was a pretty rummy set of circs if you weren't accustomed to this sort to thing happening from time to time. I'd almost become used to it. One gets used to all sort of things these days.

It was Doll who broke the silence.

She laughed like an express train going over a suspension bridge, carrying a cargo full of loose rocks.

“So you hired a female impersonator for the job?”

This confused me somewhat, for I'm not sure I had quite grasped the nuance so to speak.

“Well yes, I thought it was just the thing for impersonating a female. I was only surprised to find out there was so much call for them, does this sort of thing happen often enough that one can make a living at the profession or does one have to do other things as well to pad it out in the lean months?”

“Bertie, you are the living end!”

“Alright, Micky,” she told to the snapper, “Well I suppose we'd better get posing for our wedding album. Then we shall drink to the bride and groom!”

“God bless and keep you, baby” she said to me, as we posed to together in the guise of the happy couple, “When I got the call from my agent this morning, I just thought you'd be some old pervert. Not that I judge... chucking stones about when you live in a greenhouse is just the sort of thing that can get a girl kicked out of Kew Gardens these days… but you are something else altogether!”

Once we were done, I paid up and we parted amicably and as friends.

The photographer told me that he could have the prints made up by the end of the day and so I left with a light heart and mangled a spot of lunch at the Drones while I waited.

True to his word when I returned, the photographs were ready and waiting. I popped a couple in envelope and sent them first-class postage to Madeline, enclosing a brief note wishing her and Spode much happiness together.

By return of post the following day, I received a short letter thanking me for the photographs, wishing the young lady and myself a long and happy marriage, and requesting that I should not attend the wedding after all.

I must admit that a superstitious part of me had rather hoped to watch Madeline and Spode wedded in person. In the manner of Doubting Thomas, who couldn't witness a miracle without wanting to go poking about in its inner workings and talking up the plot holes, I shouldn't quite believe it had happened without seeing it done with my own eyes. But not wanting to look a gift-horse in the mouth, I let the matter rest.

The unexpected upside of being asked to give the wedding feast a wide berth, was that it meant I should be able to spend an evening with my American friend 'Rocky' Rockmeteller Todd, who was in the country on a lecture tour. I had received a letter the day before, only its arrival had been rather over-shadowed at the time by my apprehension at the task which at that stage in the proceedings still lay ahead of me.

Now I had neither fiancées nor the prospect of future felonies looming over me, I could give him an answer in the affirmative, for I very much wanted to see him. I had thought I should have missed him, for he only got around to letting me know he was in town just before he was due to leave again. But fortunately thanks to Madeline's sudden aversion I should be spending the night with him after all. This was good news, for we'd always rubbed along pretty well together on previous occasions.

I did not tell Jeeves about the sudden change of plans re. my attendance of the Spode-Bassett nuptials. I had already given him the night off, planning to find lodgings in the village rather than travel back up to town after the festivities had ended; for I had planned to carouse to my very limit, free at last of an oft-feared foe. Instead, when the day finally dawned, I spent a pleasant evening with Rocky, which was just like old times, and returned refreshed to the apartment the following morn.

I kept the new arrangements quiet from Jeeves for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I did not want the old boy to feel obliged to alter on my behalf, any plans he may have made to spend a pleasant evening unshackled from domestic responsibility. Also, I had my own personal reasons for wanting to keep my appointment with Rocky on the down low, which I shall decline to expand upon here. But mostly, it was because the conversation no longer flowed between the two of us the way it had once done, atop those blue-remembered hills of a few months or so ago. I was quite certain by this stage, that he would be leaving me any day now and I could not stand to live cosily in the presence of the one who was so soon departing. I drew back or else I should have clung.

Now Rocky is a decent sort cove and we always seem to fill our time together pretty well. We differ in matters of what constitutes correct evening dress, but so did Jeeves and I; even at our very chummiest. What I mean to say is this: you can differ with a fellow's construction of things and still like a fellow very much. But over the course of our evening's entertainment he had mentioned something viz. the finer points of Jeeves' immersion in the New York nightlife, which I could not help but think old Rocky had constructed very shoddily indeed. Truly, as he said it, Rocky appeared to me the very slum-lord of all possible constructions of the truth.

Now Jeeves had only plunged into said nightlife in the course of helping Rocky compile dispatches for his Aunt Isabel in Illinois. And it was true that he had plunged with aplomb. He was no mere anthropologist, but a member of the merry tribe. The full story of why the dispatches to Rocky's aunt were necessary in the first place and how they subsequently ceased, are too long to relate here.

What's more the gist of what Rocky had just told me about my man's time as a man-about-the-town would have been quite unprintable anyway.

Now I was quite certain that Rocky's intel. on the matter was bogus. The story in question scarcely seemed credible, for it's fundamental flaw was that among its principal protagonists was numbered Jeeves. Of another I should have believed it quite readily. Of Jeeves, however, I stood quite unready and quite unwilling to believe.

I do like the bandying about of names and this was some bandying of the first order.

Where it concerned Jeeves, the suggestion of what had been suggested was really quite suggestive. I shut down all thought it it right away.

The incident reminded me however, of a far sadder sadness. For sad as it indeed was that I had recently acquired the habit of keeping little trifles – such Rocky's visit and my anti-Madeline manoeuvres – from Jeeves, the habit of stashing secretly much larger triffles was rather more engrained. This saddened me.

For all that I trusted in the fellow and put my worries to him willingly, it had never been quite true to say I had no secrets from my man.

And yet, I was rather proud of myself for having handled the final hurdle in the Madeline saga through my own powers alone, sans the assistance of the Inimitable One.

For when he did choose to leave my employment, I had no intention of finding another Jeeves; even if such a thing could have existed in this world.

If he was to leave me, I had decided that I should be left quite alone.

I could accept no imitations.


End file.
